A/N: I was supposed to finish this yesterday, but I have to confess I got the dates mixed up and thought tomorrow was the seventh. Considering today is the eight, I was a couple of days behind. Hopefully it's not too late for the challenge.

I don't often write time travel fics, but this one fit nicely into it. Toyed with throwing it in for a competition too, but decided my other idea would be long enough for it. So this is just for the Tobias, Who is He? challenge on the Pokemon Fanfiction Challenges Forum.

And writing from the POV of a character we barely see, let alone know the personality of. Blame my muses. But I didn't like the idea of him being like the Collector from the third movie; I wanted him to be mostly ordinary. So this is what came out.

Wherefrom Art Thou, Tobias

The future is a nightmare. I know it; I have seen it, lived it – despised it, and tolerated it. I thought there was no other choice, but that was before I learnt the truth behind this nightmare. That was before I met Darkrai.

Pokemon are rarely seen in my world. Rattata and pidgey and hoothoot that once filled the grasslands and the sky were now only seen in battered picture books. The oddish that were said to dance with the wind; the hoppip that once floated with the clouds as small but surefooted pokemon leapt from one to another in her childhood games. Only the legendries have a constant presence: their life-sized granite statues stood in a large ring in the Elite's Hall.

Once, that place was where the champion was crowned. It was an island then: a small island that was a part of a larger one. Lily of the Valley, where aspiring trainers bloomed into victors, where one strong lucky person made history and entered the Master's League.

That was back when there was a Master's League, or a master. Back when the legendries were untouchable, true Gods. Before Man took over, and the legendries were like the kings and queens of long ago, puppets and figureheads while the Elite that was the Government had control.

The Elite that made up the government each had a legendary of their own. That was their mark: complete control, over both humankind and pokemon. They had the people important to them: their heirs, the ones that would one day succeed them. In a few generations, intermarriage would be going on; there was already polygamy. Everybody else is pushed down, squashed like rats confined to a life in the sewers.

I don't have to tell you how that's like. I don't think you have the stomach for it anyway. I sure don't, and you learn to keep your head up, quick. That's the only thing in the streets that defines you – and one day, you can get lucky and somebody important will notice you.

Albeit, the best that will get you is a full stomach. Things are too tightly regulated that the power-levels quickly form and rule in the undercurrents. The Elite know of it and let it run: it's their way of keeping their control, by letting small insignificant transgressions rule.

Except the upper echelons weren't as happy as we thought they were, staring up at their too far away throne. They came down to the streets sometimes, to see if everything was prim and proper and the ideal world they wanted.

That ideal world was a single city surrounded by ruin. They'd destroyed the land beyond it, and the pokemon that had fled there. The few that had managed to survive would be bled out in a few years, and then perhaps even the legendries would be killed.

This had all begun years before I was born – but not so many years before. My parents had known an earlier time, though they'd been young and their memories easily abandoned. It might have been one of the legendries: even the old and almost dying remembered very little of what had been before. Many said, in whispers away from the ears of the Elite, that only those Elite remembered the beforetime, and know why it had been so drastically changed.

Or that's how it had been, until the unrest between the Elites had stretched far enough for one of them to abandon their post. And he came into the city, flustered and searching for something, or someone. He found a few people, those who had to pass him in order to get on with their lives. They disappeared for a bit and then returned as if nothing had ever happened. And the noose around our necks loosened a bit – not that people really noticed.

Usually, the noose was tight and the punishment harsh. Taking more than the allocated share was punishable by death, but the kids tried sometimes. They even went for little things: a pill for a sick Ma, or something. It cost them more than a dead parent…but then this one day got away with it for three days, before the news had spread.

Execution wasn't enough to get rid of the stain of incompetence. It was a sign that the Elite were falling apart, squabbling around themselves. And, around that time, the straying one found me.

He told me the whole story: how he had a Celebi and saw where their future was heading, and where the one that'd been destroyed could have gone. How there was a Mew that had wiped the memories of every man, to try to control a disaster before it occurred. How Celebi had showed that man could not live forever under that noose – and it was showing. Little rebellions were going to get bigger, and there was no denying that. Killing a kid three days after the crime gave a breath of life. The perfect society was crumbling, and there was nothing to appease them.

He also told me about the darkrai he'd taken from his colleague. His now dead colleague – the cause of the chaos in the upper echelons that had blinded them to their world. He wanted to change the future, he said. But he was too ambitious, too greedy; they were all too ambitious and greedy. No-body wanted to lose power; no-body wanted to admit they were wrong. When he does, the others try to squash him. It's only because celebi can jump through time that he's still here. But celebi are not the master of time.

I asked why he was telling me this. It would only get me in to trouble – but there wasn't anything in particular I aspired towards. You didn't get much choice, here, about your future. Less when the Elite had one for whatever aptitude you showed in your classes. It's part of the reason people could risk their lives for an extra bite, or a pill that'd last a few days at the most. Because there was nothing to look forward, nothing really to risk. It was why they could jump like starving dogs through any little gap – because there was nothing to be gained by doing elsewise when even the slightest opportunity existed.

I was half-surprised no-body had tried to do the guy in, since a legendary Pokemon on the side of the common people could have meant a fighting chance. But I don't think that, deep down, too many people cared about fighting chances. Everyone cared only for themselves and the few they loved, and therein was the problem.

I wasn't quite at that cynical age, and I wanted to believe. The Elite said he saw the same in me, something he'd been searching for. 'And yet,' he said thereafter, 'you are growing cynical. I doubt you believe any ordinary pokemon can defeat these legendaries.'

Of course not. If they could, they wouldn't have been wiped out in that massacre, grossly outnumbering as they were.

Except the Elite didn't believe that, and he told me this. 'In the past, there was a trainer. He had only ordinary pokemon, but he had an extraordinary connection with them. He defeated two legendries in his time – before we killed him to being the prelude to the end of the world.'

I think I was surprised at that, but I can't remember. The words had seemed more important than the reaction. And I was still considering trying to take Celebi. Even if it could not bring a future for everyone, I could allow myself the selfishness of finding a good future for myself.

Except there was something in the way this Elite spoke that told me I could see a better future by just listening. So I did, and he explained how Celebi had showed him that future – the future that could have been so drastically altered if the boy they'd killed had instead just been pushed a little further. Because he'd had the potential to stop the doom heading their way – and by killing him in order to protect themselves, the world had sealed its delayed fate.

And then he told me what he wanted.

'Take Darkrai.' He offered the ball with the nightmare pokemon. 'And Celebi will take you to the time before it changed. That boy will be in the Sinnoh League, held here. You must defeat him; he must not win. He isn't ready to win – and you must show him that, by defeating him with these legendries.'

These? I wondered. He didn't sound as though he was giving me Celebi.

He wasn't. He outlined his plan instead; take the other legendries from the owners, so when order toppled in this time, he would have the upper hand. Celebi would stay with him, and Dialga, Palkia and Giratina. Evidentially, he didn't trust me with the powers that could change the world. Why would he, after all? He is putting a huge chance on intuition.

'The other Elites don't all agree with the majority,' he explained. 'Some are on our side; they'll keep their friends as well, naturally. But they'll also get the rest.'

He'll give what he can spare, he said. For a full team – because Celebi can't see a future in exactness once it's subject to change. But he sees more than one pokemon fighting for me, so more than one I must take.

The Elite, with the power to manipulate time, still has the upper hand. But when I am about to leave, he gives me the flames of life as well. 'Entei,' he explained. 'This was also foreseen by Celebi, but for a different reason. She is not to fight, but to restore, and not for you.'

I am just to be a messenger, but so be it. I follow those rules, and take that power. Victory gives me no pleasure, because I have been given gods in a time where gods still lived. Training gives me little less, because my pokemon have little to respect of me: we head to the same goal, nothing more. The only thing I can be happy about is the bright green world, and I throw myself into it, dwelling in the shadows as I grow.

The Tobias who walks the path of the light is the one in search for a legend though. The one who sweeps through the league with Darkrai, the one Celebi foresaw as my shadow. I won't be free for a long time of that, if ever. The future and its passage to time still has the advantage in that. But I think I can understand having too much power now: I have it now. No-one can match Darkrai, let alone the rest of my team. And his nightmarish power sucks out hope and keeps the future alive.

Ironically, that feeds some sort of determination within me. Pokemon training is for me a side-quest and not a goal; even if I do nothing my team can demolish anything; they are Gods. At least until the legendary trainer comes forth and defeats them. But training the little ratatta that had tried to steal my food? That was another story. His nose was damaged as well; it was the only way a wild animal with any sense would sneak up to a bag containing the balls of six legendary pokemon. But I liked that, for some reason. He reminded me of my home, as undesirable as it had been. It reminded me of me, in a sense. Even if I couldn't use him in an official battle, because I had to be a trainer that controlled the Gods until the legendary boy with ordinary pokemon could defeat me.

But before that he would lose, because the Elite told me he wouldn't be ready, and he wasn't. But he had defeated two legendary pokemon, two more than anyone else had done. And he'd done it, as the Elite had said, with perfectly plain looking pokemon.

He was supposed to save the world, and I didn't doubt he could do it. Yes, he wasn't strong enough yet, but he would grow. I could see it from his eyes: his determination, his spirit. Like that Elite had seen something in me, something that set us apart.

But since coming here, to the past, I'd learnt I wasn't special at all. Not in this world. My exceptionality was pokemon I hadn't earned, and that's why I'm just the messenger, waiting to continue the message.

But I was not a proud person, otherwise I could have cast it all down and become a different sort of legend with Rattata by my side – if I had what it took to become a legend. But that didn't matter; the legend was the one who'd defeated the Gods – his tally now up to four of them: an articuno that had befriended a frontier brain, a regice that belonged to one, and now Darkrai and Latios to add to that list. But those first two were from trainers who had truly earned the right to battle alongside Gods; the legendries of my time were symbols and shadows of these beasts. Even if their physical prowess had not been touched, their wills had been shattered.

But a legendry was a legendry, especially to the world that didn't know the truth. Anyone else would have been content to lose at that, but there was a challenge in his eyes that made me believe he would become stronger, and save this world.

All I had to do now was drive him further if he came to me again, and save him from the Elite when they reared their heads in the nearer future. Or let Entei loose, for it seemed he was the one destined for that task, and not me. Not that I was really destined for everything, if the pokemon did all the necessary work with me as their figurehead.

I was just a messenger, carrying the pokemon that were needed to their task it seemed, and doing a spot of babysitting in between.